Digital India Awards 2019 to be held on 22 February

The Digital India Awards under the ambit of National Portal organized by National Informatics Centre (NIC) have emerged over the years as a credible platform to recognize the digital presence and e-Governance efforts of various Government institutions across the country. The awards instituted in 2009 are one of a kind in India for honoring the efforts of different Government entities in the digital realm.

The Digital India Awards have played a pivotal role in promoting the use of World Wide Web platform as an effective tool for e-Governance. At the same time, numerous departments have been able to take inspiration and emulate the successful innovations which have been recognized and rewarded on the Digital India Awards platform.

Since its inception the Digital India Awards have seen four editions, beginning from 2010, and biennially being conferred in 2012, 2014, & 2016. Continuing with the tradition of recognizing & rewarding excellence, NIC is all set to organize the fifth edition of Digital India Awards on February 22, 2019, where Hon’ble Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad will grace the occasion and give away the awards.

The Digital India Awards over the years have honored various government departments which have done exemplary work. Over the years the categories have also been aligned with the latest trends in the field of technology. In the fifth edition we have the following categories: Emerging Technology, Best Mobile App, Exemplary Online Service, Open Data Champion, Web Ratna – Ministry/Department, Web Ratna – State/UT, Web Ratna – District, Outstanding Digital Initiative by a Local Body.

In the fifth edition also, various Government entities have been evaluated in the above mentioned categories by a high level jury consisting of senior government officials, academia and industry experts. A new addition to the awards this year is the introduction of a new category known as ‘Emerging Technologies’. This category seeks to identify and reward those digital initiatives that have made exemplary use of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Virtual Reality, BlockChain, Internet of Things (IoT), Voice User Interface, Big Data and Analytics.

Besides conferring the Digital India Awards, the releases of the following will also take place:

The Coffee Table Book is prepared with an objective to create awareness about the success of Digital India across the country for the betterment of the common man.

Digital India Awards Compendium

Digital India Awards Compendium is a compilation of the exemplary digital initiatives that have been awarded in each of the eight categories for the platinum, gold and silver awards. The compendium also carries a mention of Jury Choice and Special Mention awards.

STQC Accessibility Certification Scheme

S3WaaS framework empowers Government entities to build secure, scalable & sugamya websites that are hosted on the NIC cloud in a very short time. SWaaS framework was launched last year, with a goal to cover all the districts of the country within a short span of time.

Unified Messaging Platform

MeitY is releasing its Unified Messaging Platform for secure and efficient Government communications, as part of the mandate
NIC is the implementing agency for this large deployment. Email and messaging are the backbone of e-governance.
eMail service has a grown from a user base of 0.45 million in 2014 to over 2 million in 2018 and handles a traffic of over 2 crore emails daily.
The Unified Messaging Platform of NIC envisages to provide email service to over 5 million officials of Central and State Government employees with the domain @gov.in/@state.gov.in (for e,g @bih.gov.in) .
The service has been built through an open source solution in accordance with the “Policy on adoption of Open source software for Government of India” by MeitY, thus, ensuring strategic control of Government over the solution.
The service provide a multilingual platform comprising of 11 local languages with a go-live in English and Hindi initially, followed by other languages.
The service ensures security, performance, redundancy and service continuity in addition to a rich feature set.

Public DNS

MeitY will soon be implementing the Public Domain Name Server for India.
NIC would be configuring the setup which would be offered to all citizens DNS stands for Domain Name System.
India’s Public DNS, as an inherent feature, would ensure fast access, enhanced availability, secure access, maintain data privacy and data localization within India and will be one of the key components to ensure Internet Resilience.

Cyber Crisis Management Plan (CCMP)

The Cyber Crisis Management Plan (CCMP) for Countering Cyber Attacks and Cyber Terrorism is a framework document for dealing with cyber-related incidents.
CERT-In is leading the implementation of CCMP across Central Government Ministries/Departments / states and critical organizations operating in Indian cyberspace. Along with the CCMP-2019, CERT-In has developed Guidance framework for CCMP which will enable various entities including Central Government Ministries/Departments/ entities under their administrative control to prepare & implement their own CCMP.